


never understood you before (but I do now)

by thedemelzarobins



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Jilytober 2020, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Modern Marauders (Harry Potter), Mutual Pining, Pining, Strangers to Lovers, Tumblr: jilytober, also i know roger davies is very much not lily and james' age, but by the time i realized that it was too late, jily, popular!james potter, same with romilda vane (lol), so let's pretend that roger davies' father is also named roger davies, some wolfstar
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:39:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26842270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedemelzarobins/pseuds/thedemelzarobins
Summary: “See you around, Evans?” James calls, voice strangely strangled-sounding. Lily thinks she imagined it.(american high school!au)
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Comments: 44
Kudos: 92





	1. of broken cameras (of jagged glass)

**Author's Note:**

> this has been on my computer for a loong time. but now it's here! yay!

LILY EVANS DOES NOT THINK OF JAMES POTTER. She does not think of him — loud, funny, arrogant — as she walks to the bus stop each morning (she does, however, regret the fact that she doesn’t have her driver’s license yet). She does not think of him as she gets her textbooks from her locker (she does think of Roger Davies, though). She does not think of him as she moves from classroom to classroom, notebook to notebook, assignment to assignment. She does not think of him as she takes yearbook photos and attends Feminists of Northwood High meetings. She does not think of his eyes (hazel) or his hair (dark brown, almost black, always ruffled _does he even try_ ) or his face (a mishmash of features that, admittedly, only he can pull off).

There are, however, plenty of other people — girls, especially — who do think of James. Girls who think of his eyes (captivating, intense) and his hair (perfectly messy) and his face (jawline, glasses). Girls who watch him sit at the best table in the cafeteria with Sirius and Remus and Peter, trading jokes back and forth and smiling easily, and wish, fervently, that they could be pulled into his vortex, into his charisma, into his confidence.

Lily doesn’t look down on these girls — no, that would be borderline misogynistic of her. She just doesn’t understand the appeal, because, to her, James Potter has always seemed a little too sharp around the edges, a disco ball made of jagged glass, to provoke any feelings of fondness or… more. Her impression of him is no doubt colored by Sev, who, despite now being the poster boy for fucking Brietbart, used to tell her things. Used to tell her what James would do, how his friends — “they call themselves the _Marauders_ , Lil, how presumptuous is _that_ ” — would take a laugh at his expense. James Potter is smart, the thing is, and observant, and he knew just what to say — just what buttons to push — in order to get Sev where it really hurt.

Whatever. The point is, James Potter is sharp, and Lily doesn’t want to prick her finger.

So, when James walks over to Lily on the first day of October and asks her to go out with him, ignoring the fact that she’s fulfilling her very important duties as yearbook editor-in-chief by taking photos of the soccer team — Roger Davies is the “keeper,” which Lily has learned means goalie, and James is a striker, whatever the hell that means, and Lily thinks it’s unfair that James gets all the glory when Roger is the _backbone_ of the team, but whenever she tries this argument on her friends, they dismiss it on the grounds that she has a not-so-tiny crush on Roger and therefore is biased — Lily says no.

“No?” James repeats, and for a second Lily feels almost bad for him, ruffled hair and eyes blinking at her from behind those glasses of his.

“No,” she affirms. “I’m sorry, but I’m not interested.”

He nods, and twists around to look at Sirius, Remus, and Peter, who are all laughing — at him or at her, Lily can’t be sure, but either way it makes her skin prickle — from the sidelines. “Hey, she said no!”

“Fuck,” Sirius says, his voice carrying in a way he must be aware of. “Sorry, Evans!”

Lily is a little surprised that Sirius knows her name. Surprised, perhaps, because she thinks of him only as Marlene’s fiercest crush, the reason why so much Taylor Swift leaks out of her friend’s aging Toyota. No, Sirius is not a _person_ , not in Lily’s head. The collision of these two worlds — Marlene’s and reality’s — makes her very uncomfortable.

“For what?” Lily yells back, rolling her strained neck (that camera weighs heavier than she remembered — technically taking photos is below her paygrade, but fucking Lucius skimped out again because of a “family emergency” and she has to get them in in time, and besides… a plausible excuse to look at Roger is certainly _not_ something she would ever pass up on).

“Sorry for unleashing James on you, it was a dare,” Sirius shouts, and one of the practicing soccer players tells them to either shut up or go somewhere else. Lily rolls her eyes and makes a decision. She could walk towards them, cross the social line, discover what “unleashing James” means.

She doesn’t. She shrugs and walks away.

“See you around, Evans?” James calls, voice strangely strangled-sounding. She thinks she imagined it.

***

The next time she sees him, he’s probably drunk, holding a red solo cup in his left hand and high fiving Sirius with his right. She watches him from across the room — it’s not intentional, she tells herself, but she does— as he chats with his friends.

“Lily. Lilylilylily,” a drunk Dorcas whines, tugging on Lily’s sleeve like a four year-old.

“What?” Lily asks, recalibrating and facing her friend.

“Mary. It’s Mary. Mary from P.E.”

Following her friend’s gaze, Lily confirms that Mary from P.E. is indeed also in Sirius’s house for this random party, chatting with Romilda Vane, a sophomore a year younger than her. “I see her.”

“Why is she talking to Romilda?” Dorcas asks, way too loud, and Lily drags her friend up the stairs and through the nearest door. The abundance of death metal memorabilia tells her that they’re in Sirius’s bedroom.

“I thought you were done with Mary.”

“I never started with Mary,” Dorcas says petulantly, plopping unceremoniously onto the unmade twin in the corner. “Mary is pretty. Mary is sweet. Why is Mary speaking to Romilda Vane?”

“Maybe Mary likes Romilda Vane,” Lily suggests gently, sitting down on the bed next to Dorcas.

“I thought Mary liked me.”

“I don’t —”

“I think that Romilda should go home. GO HOME, ROMILDA.”

“Don’t shout, someone might hear,” Lily replies, thinking of the cracked-open door.

“Then they can join me in telling Romilda to go home.”

Lily is about to formulate some response to this when the door swings open, and who but James Potter steps in, arm slung around Gretchen Prewett’s waist, hair messier than usual. He’s whispering to the girl, smile tugging at his face, and just as he’s about to lean in, he sees Lily.

Is it just the lighting, or does his face go slightly red? Lily knows hers did.

James opens his mouth as if to say something, but nothing comes out. Gretchen’s eyes shift from Lily to James and back. Lily grabs Dorcas’s hand and pulls her friend past them and down the stairs.

Around a half hour later, James and Gretchen follow.

***

_“Evans!”_

_Lily slams her locker door shut and turns towards the voice. “What do you want, James?”_

_“Sounds like someone got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning,” he responds, that annoying, way-too-full-of-himself grin on his face._

_“I’m betting you did, considering that your hair looks like_ that _,” Lily shoots back, shouldering her backpack. She has plans to meet Sev, plans involving ice cream, and doesn’t want to be late because James Potter decided he wanted a verbal sparring partner._

_James whistles. “Nice one. Listen, Lily…” he pauses, and for a second she sees something like vulnerability on his face. The halls are basically empty now — it is a Friday, after all, and no one lingers if they can help it — and for a second it feels like the air has compressed around her, around them, until the only sounds in the world are James’s intake of breath as he prepares to speak again._

_“There’s — my mom has a garden that she’s working on, and I remember you saying that you like flowers, and — well — do you want to garden with me? Sometime?”_

_“Lil?” The air expands again._

_Lily turns, and there’s Sev, standing with his too-long hair and his messenger bag, looking confused and angry and betrayed, most of all._

_“Of course it’s Snivellus,” James mutters, and all of the vulnerability is gone, the mask of self-assurance pulled firmly back into place._

_A lot has happened in the past five minutes, but those words are the only ones that Lily latches onto. “What do you mean, ‘of course it’s Snivellus’?” she snaps, turning back to face James in full, with all of the fiery self-righteousness only a seventh grader can possess._

_James opens his mouth and closes it again, eyes shifting between Lily and Sev. “Of course,” he says, voice cool and measured, “it’s Snivellus. Your guard dog, huh, Evans? See the big bad James Potter and he’ll come running, because God forbid you talk to anyone — hang out with anyone — but him.”_

_“You’re out of line, James,” Lily says, feeling her cheeks coloring and hoping that Sev won’t notice. “I would never pick flowers with you.”_

_With that, she turns on her heel, towards Sev, towards ice cream, towards the planned banality of the afternoon._

When freshman year began, things shifted. Sev joined the Alternative Media Club and started spouting shit. People noticed James, and he stopped noticing Lily. Roger moved to their town from Seattle. Life seemed more pressing, more tangible, more present. And that was that.

***

Besides, Lily has other things — other _boys_ — to worry about. She’s had a massive crush on Roger Davies since freshman year, and for good reason: he’s kind. Considerate. Talks to the frosh even though he’s a senior like her and has every reason to ignore them. Has a killer smile, the right height, and broad shoulders. Perfect.

If only — well. She and Roger are perfectly friendly, but she doubts he knows anything about her; she doubts he thinks anything about her. Logically, Lily has known this since freshman year, but, still, she stays within his sightline. She wore makeup tonight, more than usual. She hopes he’ll look up and _see_ her, like the male love interest does in all of Marlene’s favorite movies; hopes he’ll realize that the one he’s been looking for has been right in front of him the entire time.

Lily knows how stupid she’s being. She also knows that, when he does (finally) make eye contact with her (once, but she swears he held it for a second longer than normal), her heart starts to race. So there’s that.

***

James joins yearbook, with means that Sirius, Remus, and Peter join yearbook. Lily was tempted, when they first showed up outside room 304, to tell them to leave — she knows their respect for authority is basically natch, and she needs order if the yearbook is going to be any good this year — but she bites her tongue. James ignores her, anyway, or at least he does until discussion of the theme comes up. Roger and Lily had already settled on Outer Space, and the rest of the staff were on track to agree — that is, until James stands up and makes an impassioned speech in favor of Animals, egged on by Sirius shouting “hear, hear!” every few minutes. Lily shuts it down and sends the so-called Marauders to take photos of the Bible Study club as punishment. James bounds out of the room, camera bouncing against his chest in a way that makes Lily want to tear her hair out because _he’s gonna break it_.

When the meeting’s over, Roger walks out of the building with her.

“You were good with them,” he says. “James and — the rest.”

“Oh,” Lily says, and she’s definitely blushing now. “Thanks.”

He smiles — an easy grin — and walks towards his car. Marlene honks from hers, and Lily hops in. Later, when Mar drops her off at her house, she has a text from an unknown number.

**Potter broke the camera — Roger**

Lily knows she should be mad about the camera, but she can’t quite summon the emotion. Instead, something glittering flutters through her.

Roger Davies’ number is now in her phone.

***

James doesn’t have an excuse at the next meeting. He just stares at the floor when Roger asks how the camera broke, and Lily can’t help but notice that it’s unlike James to be quiet. Ever.

She shrugs the thought off; she has work to do. Important work, like getting official pictures of every club, affinity group, and forensics team in her sprawling, one-thousand student high school. Later, walking down a back stairwell and marveling at her luck at being able to get the photos for both the presidents of Cheese Club and the cohort leaders of Girls Who Code in the same fifteen-minute time frame, Lily hears voices. Familiar ones.

“Why didn’t you just tell them?” the first one says. Lily immediately identifies the lazy drawl as Sirius’s.  
“What kind of friend do you think I am, idiot?” James’s voice — sharper, yet friendlier, even as he insults his friend — replies. Lily looks over the banister and sees that the pair is standing on the steps a flight down, (new) cameras around their necks.

“It’s just Peter,” Sirius snorts. “Not a big deal. His dad would’ve paid for it anyway.”

“You know how Roger is with Peter,” James says in a hushed tone that makes Lily lean even further over the bannister. “He’d tear him to pieces. Besides, it’s just a camera. Mom’ll be happy to reimburse the school when she hears why I said I did it.”

“Will she, though? You know how she gave us that whole speech about responsibility and digging our own graves and stuff like that.”

James stiffens slightly, the lines of his jaw and the straight of his back becoming slightly more pronounced as he fiddles with his hands. “I’ll talk to her.”

“But she said —”

“I know what she said, Sirius.”

“But soccer —”

“I’ll figure it out!” James says sharply. After a second, he buries his head in his hands. “Sorry. ‘M really tense. It’ll all work out.”

Sirius stands. “It better.”

Lily’s phone starts to vibrate, and she hurries back up the stairs before she’s discovered, mind reeling.

_You know how Roger is with Peter. He’d tear him to pieces._

The Roger she knows — thinks she knows — would never hurt someone, and definitely not over a stupid camera. Right?

***

“I can’t believe — he’s insufferable — the _camera_ —”

“We have insurance,” Lily says, watching Roger pacing the room.

“That we had to fight to get the school to sponsor! Ms. Rodriguez is going to freak the fuck out and… Jesus, Lily, why aren’t you more upset by this?”

“Because it’s not a big deal! We’ll get the new camera and chew James out, and he won’t go it again.”

At this, Roger stops pacing. “No. We need to kick them out.”

“What?”

He puts his hands on a desk between them, leaning in ever so slightly. “Lily. They _broke_ a camera. They’ve cost this school — us — hundreds of dollars. And they’re not even good at yearbook! They only joined because —”

“Because what?” Lily asks, annoyed.

Roger purses his lips. “Not my secret to tell, but it’s so fucking obvious.”

“Then tell me.”

He shakes his head, runs a hand through his hair. “No. Can we at least… put them on probation?”

“Yearbook probation?” Lily says disbelievingly, trying to reconcile this version of Roger with the one in her head, puzzle pieces mashing against each other but not sliding into place. She doesn’t understand why Roger is so upset, but James’ words keep echoing in her head. _He’d tear him to pieces._ “I didn’t know that existed.”

“You’re right. It’s fine. I’ll email Ms. Rodriguez.”

Lily exhales. “Thank you.”

He shoulders his bag, takes a deep breath. “Okay. I have practice, but I’ll text you once I’ve sent the email.”

Lily knows she should be ecstatic at the promise of more communication with him, but, as she watches him go, she can’t quite summon the excitement. _You know how Roger is._ No, she doesn’t.


	2. of protection (unknowingly given)

JAMES AND LILY ARE IN THE SAME MATH CLASS; THIS FACT IS NOT NEW. What is new, however, is that today, he drops his bag in Sev’s seat, the one right next to her. 

“Hey,” he says, then nods once, as if this is normal. It is not.

“Hi,” she responds, because she doesn’t know what else to do. What she does know is that suddenly she’s aware of him, aware of the solidness of his form beside her. He’s tall, taller than Roger. She never really noticed that before.

He fiddles with his pencil. She blinks once, twice. She’s probably so attuned to his movements because he took Sev’s seat. Yes, that must be it. James sitting next to her means that Severus “I’m a fucking white supremacist” Snape can’t. Math has always been the worst, too — Lily cut Sev out of her life junior year, after he published _that_ article, but he refuses to listen to her when she tells him to stay away, and sits next to her whenever he can. She has no friends in math class, no one to shoot him dirty looks and drown out his murmured apologies and arguments.

But James is here, now. Even if he’s not her friend. Even if he doesn’t know the significance of what he just did.

He’s still here. And that’s something.

***

 _Lily, please save me_ , the note reads, written in James’s messy scrawl. It took her a long time, as well as a lot of not-so-subtle hints from James, to realize that he’d written it in the first place. It takes her a little longer to decipher his handwriting, which is fine, because she’s ahead on the problems they’re supposed to be working through, caught in that in-between of being too good for regular math and not good enough for honors. As she looks at the curled-up bottom portion of his notebook, she senses Sev glaring daggers at her from across the room. Perfect.

 _From what? s_ he writes back, letters neat and compact. James reads it almost immediately and takes a long time to respond.

_The evil eye that Snivellus is giving me right now._

_Ha, ha._

A smile spills out of the corner of his mouth as he writes back. _Are you two involved in some sort of torrid love affair I didn’t know about? Am I making him #jelly?_

 _That hashtag made me throw up in my mouth a little._ She pauses, pencil flicking against the desk. She knows he’s watching, knows Sev is watching, and so she picks up the paper again and adds, _and_ _no, I am not involved with Sev. Would rather make out with Tony the Squid._

His smile widens, now, and she catches it in her peripheral vision. _Not our school mascot. That’s too far, Evans._

It occurs to Lily that she’s acting exactly like elementary school James would. She’s laughing about Sev. Her past self would be disappointed.

But her past self didn’t know what Sev would become. She angles her body more towards James, away from her former best friend’s skin-crawling stare.

***

James sits with her again the next math class, and the one after that, too. She knows things about him, now: knows that he doodles soccer balls in the margins of his notebook; knows that he can’t stop moving, and sometimes when he’s bored of tapping his pencil he’ll tap his foot against her chair leg, unconsciously; knows that he has a little scar on his neck; knows that he can make her laugh with one passed note; knows that he still hates Sev as much as he did in eighth grade.

Lily’s the first to step into the math classroom today; or, at least, she thinks she is, until she spots Sev hovering near her seat, muttering to himself under his breath. Lily steels herself and walks by him, pointedly ignoring him as she slips into her chair.

“Lil —”

“Don’t call me that,” she says immediately, and glances towards the door. She’s forgotten what it feels like to be alone with Sev: like she’s been stripped bare, vulnerable, underneath all the layers of hatred and hurt.

Sev huffs, haughtily, in a way that’s so quintessentially him that it causes Lily physical pain. “You’re blowing it all out of proportion. I was looking at the situation from a purely economic perspective—”

“You were being fucking racist, Sev, and you know it,” she snaps, trying and failing to calm down. So easy, she is. The same conversation, every time: the same circles ran, with no ground lost or gained.

Sev opens his mouth to argue back, but before he can, a new voice cuts in.

“Should’ve known I’d find you here,” says James, speaking in a way she’s forgotten that he’s capable of: sharp, sharp as cut glass.

“This has nothing to do with you, Potter,” Sev says stiffly, gaze settling on James, who in turn looks at Lily, brow furrowed.

“You’re in my seat, Snivellus.”

Sev’s face turned red. “It was my seat first.”

“Then I guess it depends on what Lily wants.”

They both turn towards her, and _this is where I get to choose_ , Lily realizes, with a startling burst of clarity. She knows she doesn’t want Sev, doesn’t want him near her, doesn’t want him begging for forgiveness with crocodile tears; she sucks in a breath, says, “That’s James’s seat.”

James smiles, just for a second, then slides into the seat next to her and starts to take out his math notebook. Sev stands, watching them, hands curled into fists; Lily can’t meet his eyes. Yes, he’s virtually unrecognizable from his childhood self, but rejection — rejection for James? James, who had made his early years a living hell?

She stares at the desk until she hears Sev’s retreating footsteps, knowing that to glance up and see the look of anguish on his face would make her feel even worse.

“Glad we got rid of Snivellus, huh, Evans?” James whispers, and he’s too close, sitting next to her with his pencil already tapping against the desk, a hand wafting through his hair. Lily feels like a child again, except this time she’s chosen the wrong side. She’s one of _them_ now. Sev will never speak to her again.

Isn’t that what she wants? He’s a terrible person; she doesn’t long for his friendship. Still, a part of her — a very small part of her — wants him to want _her_. Another wave of revulsion consumes her; for a moment, she just stares at James, wondering how she’s gotten here. “I’m not like you, James.”

He blinks. “Yeah?”

She could yell at him. She could ask him why, all those years ago, he felt it necessary to call Sev _Snivellus_ , to joke about his greasy hair and unwashed clothes, to ensure that he’d have no friends save Lily.

But in this moment, Lily’s more angry at herself. So instead, she turns towards the front of the classroom, hoping to find some sort of respite in calculus.

Sev doesn’t approach her again, after that.

***

Texts with **Roger** **Davies** , Tuesday, October 27th, 9:33pm

 **Roger:** did you get rodriguez’s approval for the theme?

 **Lily** : yeah, we’re all set!

 **Roger:** okay great

 **Roger:** i’m so glad that we’re finally done with that process

 **Roger:** james was being so annoying about choosing it

 **Lily** : lol i thought he was funny. and it didn't derail us that much

_(Lily doesn’t know where that instinct comes from, the one that tells her to defend James’s honor. Maybe she knows, in her heart of hearts, that he’d do the same for her, without question, because that’s just the kind of person he is. Maybe she imagines him in math class, tapping his pencil against his desk, focused but also not, a reassuring presence. Maybe the image in her head is shifting from the boy he once was to the boy that now sits next to her every day: the one who lets her fight her own battles, the one who doesn’t push her, the one who didn’t ask about Sev after their last encounter. She can’t be sure of it yet, but maybe she’s actually starting to enjoy his company — that is, when she forgets about the past eight years of her life.)_

_(Or, maybe, she thinks, as she lies down on her bed, watching the bubbles on her phone pop up and disappear over and over again, she knows that disagreeing with Roger will extend their conversation.)_

**Roger:** james is always like that tho

 ****Lily:**** really? he’s been pretty good lately i thought

 **Roger:** always wants things his way

 **Roger:** idk i shouldn’t be talking about this

 ****Lily:**** lol

 **Roger:** it’s just that ur nice to talk to

_(Roger’s never said that to her before. She wonders if it’s because she really is nice to talk to, or if it’s because she’s just there.)_

 ****Lily:**** lol thanks

 **Roger:** and i feel like i can trust you

_(He’s never said that to her before, either. They’ve never really spoken about non-yearbook related things. She doesn’t understand why he’s suddenly acting like they’re friends. She can’t say she doesn’t enjoy the familiarity — this is Roger, after all, and any relationship gain with him is a good one — but she feels blindsided. It was October until people burst into her room telling her it’s Christmas, and now she’s just confused.)_

 **Lily:** yeah you can trust me

 **Roger:** cool i’m glad

_seen by Lily at 9:46pm (there’s nothing more to say)._

Texts with **Roger** **Davies** , Tuesday, October 27th, 9:50pm

 **Roger:** can i ask you a question

 **Lily:** fire away

 **Roger:** are you coming to the halloween thing this weekend

 ****Lily:**** yeah was planning on it

 **Lily:** why

 **Roger:** cool maybe i’ll see you there

_(Oh.)_

_(It’s Christmas morning in October. It’s Christmas morning in October.)_

_(Lily doesn't know much about high school relationships, hookups or otherwise, but she does know this: if a boy asks a girl if she's coming to a party, he did it for a reason. And that reason is usually not so that they can discuss the yearbook.)_

******Lily:** yeah see you there

_(There's nothing more to do but wait.)_


	3. of locked doors (of hallows eve)

IT’S HALLOWEEN AND DORCAS, MARLENE, AND LILY ARE LAUGHING AT THEIR REFLECTIONS. They stand in Alice Fortescue’s bathroom, crowded against the counter, vying for mirror space; a half-empty bottle of cheap vodka sits next to the soap container. Lily feels like she’s on fire tonight, and thinks she knows why; it’s not the alcohol (she’s never been a heavy drinker), it’s not the dress, it’s not the cat ears shoved haphazardly onto her head — no, it’s not any of those things, but the promise of Roger. The promise that he’ll be there, tonight, that he’ll be looking for her, that he’ll want to see her in her cat ears and her dress, that she’ll be _wanted_ for maybe the first time in her life.

_See you there. See you there._

Those three little words — three years of waiting, pining, and wishing — are more intoxicating than Grey Goose.

What’s wrong with that?

***

Sirius Orion Black comes from old money, and, if the pure determination with which he’s set about trashing his house is anything to go by, his goal must be to get rid of all of it by the time he turns eighteen. This is the seventh blowout he’s thrown since school started two months ago — basically one every weekend — and, so far, each party has topped the last in scale, extravagance, and property damage. As Lily and her friends stumble up the well-manicured lawn and onto the front steps amidst a steady stream of late arrivals, she can already feel the decibels of the Blacks’ surround sound system vibrating through her. She looks around for Roger, but he must already be inside.

Sirius, as always, stands at the front doors, rocking from his heels to the balls of his feet as he welcomes ever more people in, grinning all the while. When Lily and her friends finally manage to make it up the steps, he winks at her — that’s new — and then turns to Marlene and Dorcas, giving them a similar treatment

“Evans. Meadowes. McKinnon.”

Marlene blushes, her slightly intoxicated state making her seem even more like a feather drifting through the air, ready to blow this way and that at the slightest change of wind direction.

Lily, who gets bolder when tipsy, shares no such quality. “Is Roger here?”

Sirius’s brow furrows, and if she were sober she would’ve asked why. But she’s not, and when he nods, she hurries off quickly, tugging Dorcas with her and leaving Marlene to the host.

“Lily. Calm down,” Dorcas whines, though the way that she’s letting Lily pull her through the crowd and toward the keg stand betrays her lack of real complaint.

“Dorcas,” Lily says, coming to a full halt and over enunciating her words. “Roger finally likes me back. I need to find him.”

“Hi, James,” says Dorcas, looking at something behind her. Lily turns and sees James, who seems to have forsaken a costume for a simple pair of (well-fitting) jeans and a shirt. His cheeks are red — from alcohol or from the heat, it’s hard to tell — but when he speaks, he sounds the same as ever: confident, just a little too much so.

“Hi, Dorcas. Hi, Lily.”

Lily realizes she’s been staring at him for too long, and, lest he get the wrong idea, says the first thing that pops into her mind. “Why aren’t you in costume?”

He blinks. For a second, Lily’s back on the soccer field, back to _Go out with me, Evans?_ , back to _It was only a dare_ , but she snaps out of it. She’s a woman on a mission tonight — but now, that mission has two parts. First, find out why James is being such a spoilsport. Second, find Roger.

“I’m dressed up as whoever you want me to be,” he says, and there’s a weird kind of sincerity mixed with self-loathing in his voice, and if Lily were sober she’d surely stop to think about _that_ , too, but at this point there are too many things to think about and the music’s pounding and she’s seen a flash of blond hair head into the kitchen. _Don’t be rude, Lily_ , the somewhat sane voice in her head reminds her, so she turns her attention back to James.

“That’s not a real costume,” Lily says, and Dorcas has disappeared to God knows where, but, looking up at James, she finds that she doesn’t really mind, not now.

James’s mouth quirks up at the side, and he stares at her for a second, something like honey softening between them, until he flicks the ears on her head and laughs. “And that’s what you call a costume, Evans?”

“At least it’s something,” Lily says, somewhat petulantly, to distract herself from the way he’s looking at her, like she’s someone worth keeping. “Easily identifiable. Et cetera.”

“Sure.” She doesn’t know where else this conversation can go, and he seems distracted, now, looking around the crowded room. For a second, she mourns the loss of his attention, but then she feels silly; what did she expect? This is James Potter. Just because he sat with her in math class doesn’t mean that she’s entitled to his friendship; in fact, she’s not even sure she wants it. _Snap out of it, Lily. Roger’s here._

“Have you seen Roger? Roger Davies?”

His eyes snap back to hers, and for a second she sees something like Sev in him, that same mix of betrayal, confusion, hurt. But it’s gone in an instant, and, as he smirks and asks why she wants to know, she forgets all about it.

“He said he’d be here.”

“Ah.” James scans the room — Lily considers herself tall, he’s taller — and shakes his head. “Can’t find him.”

“Well, thanks for trying,” Lily says, and is about to excuse herself when Gretchen Prewett walks up to him, standing on skyscraper heels to whisper something in his ear. He listens, eyes lingering on Lily for before shifting, slowly, to the girl beside him.

“See you later,” Lily mutters, shouldering her way past them. She needs something to drink.

***

It’s in the kitchen that she finds Roger, dressed in some half-assed pirate costume (an eye patch and a plastic sword hooked on his belt loop) next to the counter. For a second, they look at each other, and then he smiles, and it’s like a ray of sun breaking through the clouds on a grey afternoon, it’s like deja vu, it’s like — less than she expected, but that’s probably because she’s built the moment up in her head so much. She’s imagined him seeing her — _finally_ seeing her — for such a long time, that now that he stands before her, grinning in the dull light of Sirius’s kitchen, there’s something almost… tired about it, really.

If Lily weren’t tipsy, verging more and more on drunk with every sip from the lukewarm Coors Lite she took on arrival, she’d think about that, too. Instead, she pushes the thought down, takes one final sip from the can, and tosses it before turning to him again. He’s also been drinking, but he seems, like her, to be only slightly blurred; some sharpness shaved away at the edges, but the same otherwise.

“Lily. You look pretty,” he says, and she feels it, again: that happiness followed by the maddening normalcy, followed by the _of-course-it’s-not-as-fairytale-like-as-you-dreamed-it-would-be-Lily_.

“Thanks. You look pirate-y.”

He laughs, then throws out his drink, too. “Want to go outside?”

“Sure.”  
She follows him back through the living room, where James and Gretchen are conspicuously absent, and onto the backyard porch. Here, the music is somewhat muted, though Lily swears her heart jumps with every pound of the bass. Different couples and sparsely spread out groups of vapers line the lawns and porch chairs, but Roger leads her to the far end of the house, where an unoccupied porch swing lists slightly from side to side in the late fall breeze. They sit down and stare out into the yard, not too close but not too far from each other, either; as the seconds stretch on, Lily feels that rush of doubt again. She shivers.

“Are you cold?” Roger asks, and he’s a bit closer, now. She can feel the weight of his gaze on her.

“A little,” she admits. He pulls off the sweater he’s wearing and hands it too her. She tugs it on. “Thanks.”

“How’s life?”

“Life is… pretty good.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m glad.”

“Me, too.”

“I’m glad to be here with you.”

“I’m glad to be here with you, too.”

He kisses her, then: soft and sweet, mouth slanting against hers, the taste of beer still tingling at the corner of her senses. It’s nice. She could lose herself in him, in this moment: the night breeze wafting through the trees, the scratch of his sweater against her skin, the way his hands loop around her waist, pulling her closer. When they finally do break apart, she smiles, and though it’s not a firework kiss — not the one she dreamed about — it’s comforting. Safe.

A throat clears from above them. “Lily?”

Lily knows it’s James, and, for some reason, the thought of him seeing her with Roger sends a blush to her face. She can feel Roger’s hands tighten around her waist; a seemingly involuntary reaction.

“Yes?”

“It’s Marlene. She’s drunk and asking for you.”

“How convenient,” Roger mutters, and Lily whips her head around.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“No, Roger,” James cuts in, jaw ticking. “What did you mean by that?”  
“Go away, James,” Roger responds, voice cooler than she’s heard before.

“No.” Lily stands up, mind reeling. _Marlene. Focus on Marlene._ “Where is she?”

James jerks his head towards the house. His lips are a little more swollen than they were when she last saw him, and she wonders what Gretchen Prewett whispered in his ear. _Stop it, Lily_.

“I’ll — okay.” She turns to Roger. “I, um, have to deal with this. But I’ll talk to you later?”

He nods. 

James has already started walking away, and Lily hurries to catch up; when she does, he says nothing. They shoulder their way through the packed living room, walk up the stairs. Lily’s never been good with silence. She feels like she’s burning up in the stifling, still air between them. As they pass Sirius’s bedroom — those same death metal posters, that same bed — she finally speaks.

“What’s wrong?”

James hardly glances at her. “Nothing.”

“No,” Lily says, frustration increasing. “Something’s going on.”

James stops, turns to her. “I’m not in a good mood right now, Lily,” he says, pronouncing each word with startling precision. _Jagged glass. Pretty but sharp._ “And Marlene’s waiting.” He starts walking again, and for a moment, Lily watches him go, a lump forming in her throat. She doesn’t know why now, of all times, she’s suddenly emotional; after all, she’s gotten everything she wanted out of this night. She kissed Roger, for God’s sake.

Maybe that’s why. Maybe now that the drunken high she was pushing through has worn off, she’s realized that something in her has shifted. As soon as she kissed Roger, she was no longer the freshman who had nothing better to do than pin her hopes and dreams on a person who didn’t even know she existed. She feels grown up, now, standing here in Roger’s sweater and cat ears, watching James walk on without her.

James stops at the end of the hall, turns back. “Lily?” His voice wavers; he sounds unsure.

“Coming,” she says, blinking rapidly and hurrying to meet him. They enter the master bedroom together.

***

Marlene’s lying on the bed, Remus sitting next to her, Sirius and Peter nowhere in sight. Lily walks up to the girl, trying to control her breathing. Sirius Black has never seemed like a threat — yes, he’s a little unpredictable, but more in a charming way — but now, she can’t help from thinking that she saw her friend last standing next to him in the hall, and now she’s drunk. Too drunk.

“Marlene, are you okay?” she asks, brushing some hair out of her friend’s eyes.

Marlene smiles. “Yes. Just…. loopy. Swirly.”

Lily exhales. “You need to turn on your side. Can you do that for me, Marls?”

Marlene’s nose crinkles. “I don’t want to.”  
“Why?”  
“’S more comfy like this.”

Remus chuckles quietly. Lily’s never had a conversation with him before, but, judging from the way that he sits close by, keeping watch, she gets a feeling that they occupy similar spaces within their respective friend groups.

“I know, sweetie, but in case you throw up you need to be on your side, okay? If not you could get hurt.”

Marlene shakes her head, and Lily hauls her onto her side herself. “There.”

Given new perspective on the room and its current occupants, Marlene’s eyes widen. “Hello, Remus.”

“Hello, Marlene.”

Marlene slowly sits up. “Hello, James.”

James, leaning against the wall next to the door with his arms crossed, mumbles a greeting. Lily gets her friend water from the bathroom, and by the time she returns, Sirius is also in the room, talking to his friends in whispers.

Lily walks up to him, trying to control her temper and knowing she’s failing. “What the fuck did you do to her?”

James snorts. For a second, the air in the room is still. Then, Sirius laughs. “Nothing, Evans. She left me a little after you did, had too much to drink, and then we found her here.”

“I don’t believe you.” Lily doesn’t know much, but she knows how easy it is to get girls intoxicated, knows how much Marlene likes Sirius, knows how she can’t take much alcohol, and she’s seeing red, suddenly; she lunges at him, but James catches hold of her arm.

“Lily. Sirius wouldn’t do something like that.”

She stares up at him for a second, breathing heavily. _You’re on the wrong side_ , the voice in her head whispers. _Schoolyard bullies._

“How can I trust you?” she whispers, and James flinches.

“It wasn’t them, Lily,” Marlene coughs out. “Not them. Me.”

“I —”

“I’ll leave you to her,” Sirius says, pure ice in his tone. “Remus?”

Remus nods, and they leave the room. James collapses into an armchair in a corner far away from Marlene and Lily and puts his head in his hands.

“You’re such a good friend, Lil,” Marlene whispers, and Lily can’t help but flinch at the nickname. Marlene knows the basics of Lily and Sev’s relationship, but she doesn’t know the details. Doesn’t know that, once upon a time, Lily felt a special thrill run through her whenever that nickname rolled off Sev’s tongue.

She brushes off the memories, clearing cobwebs in her brain. “Are you absolutely sure that it wasn’t Sirius?”

Marlene nods, looking pale. “It was me, and I know I shouldn’t have —”

“Shh. You’re going to be fine.”

“Thought I needed… liquid courage… something to make me more confident, braver, more like you…”

“You don’t need anything, Marlene,” Lily says, sitting next to her friend. “You’re amazing.”

“It’s so embarrassing, though,” Marlene whispers, taking a long sip from her water. “I thought… I thought something would happen tonight, with Sirius —”

“There’ll be other nights,” Lily replies. “He’ll forget about it. Drink more water.”

Marlene does, and then: “It’s not that. I — I took more shots and then I found him again and he — he was kissing Remus and — I can’t believe I was so _stupid_.”

For a second, Lily sits, processing this new information. It makes so much _sense_ , the thing is. She can’t believe she never realized before.

“You had no way of knowing,” she finally whispers, making sure James is out of earshot. “And Sirius doesn’t even know that you liked him in the first place.”

Marlene nods, but Lily can tell she’s trying not to cry. “It’s just — I liked him since freshman year, Lil, and I — I finally thought that tonight would be the night where it all changed, but…”

She starts to cry, then, full tears. Lily glances at James, and, catching her eye, he leaves, swinging the door shut softly behind him.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Lily says, turning words over on her tongue, “I liked Roger since freshman year, and when I kissed him tonight it was just okay.”

Marlene sniffs. “Really?”  
“Really,” Lily replies, rubbing circles into her friend’s back. “No fireworks at all.” She decides to leave out the part where James interrupted them on Marlene’s behalf.

“I thought —” her friend sighs. “Never mind, it’s stupid.”

“You thought what?”

“I just thought… you had gotten with James, maybe? You entered the room together, and you were talking earlier on, Dorcas told me…”

Lily laughs incredulously. “James and I?”

Marlene nods, eyes bright. “I mean, you can’t say you’ve never even considered —”

“I haven’t.”

“I heard he sits next to you in math and —”

“He’s friendly to everyone.”

“— joined yearbook and —”

“Marlene, will you just stop?” Lily exclaims. “Listen, even if — even if _anything_ were to be a possibility, I can’t, okay? He’s — he — he’s _insufferable_ and _arrogant_ and he made Sev’s life a _living_ _hell_ , and he’s hooking up with _Gretchen_ _Prewett_ , anyway.”

Marlene smirks.

“Aren’t you supposed to be drunk right now?” Lily complains.

“Shouldn’t have gotten me water,” her friend counters.

“You know what, you’re the insufferable one.”

Marlene laughs. They sit in silence, until: “Where’s the bathroom?”

Lily gives her directions, and she leaves, wobbling slightly on her too-high heels, pale but determined. The only one left in the room, Lily stares at the wall. She’s so tired. Slowly, she leans back against the bed’s headboard and resolves to shut her eyes, just until Marlene comes back.

***

When she bursts into consciousness again, Marlene’s not there. Frowning and rubbing her eyes — sleeping in contacts is never easy — she looks around the room, then starts; James is sitting in the armchair, the blue light of his phone screen reflected in his glasses. After a second, he glances up. Lily’s mouth tastes like cotton.

“What — where’s Marlene? Dorcas?” she croaks, suddenly unable to meet his eyes, the memory of _How can I trust you?,_ the sudden realization of how hurtful that phrase was, making her cheeks burn.

James clears his throat. He, too, looks blurred; tired, rumpled, hair extra messy. “They’re downstairs playing Truth or Dare with everyone. Thought we would let you sleep.”

Lily can feel her blush intensifying. “What time is it?”

“It’s around two in the morning.”

“Oh.” Lily thinks, briefly, of missed curfews; then remembers that her parents are out of town. They’ve been doing that more and more, recently: going on business trips and couples’ retreats to faraway places, as if Petunia leaving for college means that Lily is independent enough to live on her own, too. “Why’re you here?”

James shrugs. “I didn’t feel like playing, and there were people in every other bedroom. I wasn’t watching you or anything,” he adds hastily. “I was just on my phone.”

“Okay.”

“Lily…” he runs a hand through his hair, as if trying to put his thoughts in order. “Lily, are you okay? You seemed — earlier tonight, and even after I found you with Roger — and then Marlene was upset, too — I just…”

For a moment, Lily just stares up at the ceiling, running words over her tongue, trapping them before they can escape. “I’m fine,” she says, after too long. “Tonight was interesting, and Marlene was just sad.” Then, quietly: “I’m sorry if I was short with you, or Sirius.”

James snorts. “Oh?”

Lily rolls her eyes and sits up slightly, grabbing Marlene’s water glass and drinking what remains. “You have to understand — Marlene never gets drunk, and when I last saw her, she’d been with Sirius…”

James nods. “It’s fine, Lily. Sirius would never do that, but I know — I know it’s a fear.”

Lily nods back. James inhales, exhales; for a moment, Lily’s eyes are drawn to the rise and fall of his chest, lean frame with a perfectly-fitting shirt, but then she shakes herself.

“Can I ask you a question?”

She blinks. “Sure.”

Another deep breath. “You said, um, earlier, that you couldn’t trust me. And I get it in regards to Marlene because awful things happen to women at parties but I’m just wondering, um, if there’s something else going on? I know you aren’t really that fond of me and that’s — that’s fine — but is it because I broke the camera? Something else?”

She swings her legs over the side of the bed, ready to stand. _He doesn’t know. He doesn’t remember. How could he not fucking remember what he did to Sev?_ Rage claws through the tiredness in her brain, but she tells herself to calm down. “I’m just not in a good mood right now, James,” she replies instead, his words from earlier in the night turned against him. 

“No,” he says, slipping his phone into his pocket, and it’s eerie, almost, how similar this conversation is to the one they had before. _Feels like days ago, not hours._ “Please don’t pull that shit.”

“What do you mean, ‘don’t pull that shit?’” Lily asks, a not unsubstantial note of mockery in her voice. “You did the same thing an hour ago! What do you expect, James? That I’m going to tell you everything after you acted like an asshole to Roger for _no reason_ —“

James scoffs. She glares at him. “Fine, tell me the reason.”

“No,” he replies, too quick on his feet. “Not until you tell me why you’re suddenly not speaking to me when all I did was ask why you hate me so much. I think I’ve a right to know, because you were fine in class all week, but now that we’re here it’s like I’ve stepped into an alternate dimension where suddenly I’m not worthy of your attention or —”

“Let’s just go downstairs,” Lily interrupts, standing up and walking towards the door. She’s tired and disoriented and now is not the time to explain her oh so very complicated view of James Potter to the boy himself.

“Fine,” he sighs, tugging at the doorknob.

It doesn’t budge. He tries again, but the door remains immobile.

“Come on James, this stopped being funny when we were five,” Lily practically hisses, walking up to the door and pulling on the handle. It doesn’t give; locked, probably, or stuck.

James already has his phone out. “I’m texting Sirius now, but he doesn’t check his phone much when he’s drunk.”

“I left mine downstairs,” Lily replies, realization hitting too little and too late. She can imagine her phone, with its polaroid case of her and Marlene and Dorcas from sophomore year, lying on the porch swing where she and Roger had been just a few hours ago. “Shit.”

“I’m trying Remus too. And, um, Peter? I don’t know where everyone is, and I’ve been in here for so long…” something like panic lies at the edge of his voice. Lily can feel herself softening, bit by bit. She doesn’t know how to feel about it.

“We’ll be fine,” she ends up saying. “It’ll all be fine.”

James tilts the back of his head against the door, eyes closed. Silence stretches out between them, air heavy.

“I’m just… I’m not good with locked, enclosed spaces,” he says, after a few minutes. 

“What, because you’re so tall?”

He offers a weak laugh, and nothing more. Seeing him so unstable, so uncomfortable, makes Lily more nervous than anything else about their current situation. If there’s anything she can rely on James Potter for, it’s confidence.

Maybe that’s why she starts babbling.

“I mean, this is pretty big room, if you think about it,” she says, shifting from one foot to another. “Think about all the atoms that are in it. There’re probably millions. Or trillions? A lot. And so much air. I can jump without touching the ceiling, and I think you can, too. Or I could do a cartwheel. How rich is Sirius, exactly? Because this is the biggest bedroom I’ve ever seen. The bed must be the type people have orgies on, it’s so massive. What’s it called? A California —”

“Lily.”

“— a California king, I think it is —”

“Lily.”

“— and so many windows —”

“Lily.” James says, grabbing her forearms. “Lily. Please stop.”

Something about the way he says it — like he’s struggling — floods her with guilt. “I’m so sorry. Am I making it worse? I shouldn’t have mentioned orgies —”

He laughs, and he still hasn’t let go of her forearms, and his eyes are so _hazel_ up close. Remarkably so. Impossibly so. “Lily. I’m going to say this once, and then you’re going to slap me, and then we’re going to yell until someone gets us out of this room, okay?”

She nods, confused.

He takes a deep breath. “You need to stop talking, because you making me feel better about being claustrophobic is really, really making me want to kiss you.”

He lets go of her arms.

 _This can’t be happening._ This can’t be happening, because James Potter never liked her. _But the asking out in seventh grade and then again this year on the soccer field and the way he joined yearbook and the way Roger said it was so obvious and the way James had said he was whatever she wanted him to be and the way his eyes are brown and green and gold and the way he’s not who she thought he was, not at all, and the way he’s looking at her, so vulnerable, and the way she already misses the feeling of his hands on her arms and the way —_

Later, Lily will regret it. Later, Lily will say that it was a mistake (it wasn’t), or that she was still drunk (she wasn’t) or that she just wasn’t thinking straight (she was).

Later, Lily will rationalize this as much as she wants, but for now, there’s nothing left to do but kiss him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy halloween 😈


	4. of friendship (of dissatisfaction)

JAMES’S GLASSES GET IN THE WAY. Lily should’ve expected it, should’ve known that when he’d backed her against the door, when he’d leaned down slightly to kiss her again, his glasses would bump against her forehead. He’s kissing her and she’s laughing, and she should be embarrassed, but this is James Potter and his glasses got in the way and he’s laughing, too, and they’re a mess and Lily can’t really think about anything except that Gretchen Prewett must be onto something, because she’s never felt this comfortable kissing someone before.

“How blind are you?” she asks, voice more breathless than she thought it would be (he’s kissing her neck, now, which probably has something to do with it).

“I’m nearsighted,” he replies, lips against skin. “Can’t see things far away.”

“In that case, I’m taking your glasses off,” Lily decides, reaching for them. _Eyes. Hazel. Up close._

“At least take me to dinner first.”

Lily doesn’t glorify that with a response. She can feel the time running out, sand through an hourglass; there’s only so much left before she’ll remember what he did to Sev and he’ll realize that the sweater she’s wearing belongs to Roger; before Sirius unlocks the bedroom door and Marlene wants to go home; before the sun rises and the whole night is reduced to a dreamy haze. She takes his glasses off and tosses them onto a nearby chair, and then she kisses him again.

She’s only kissed two people before: Sev, once, in eighth grade — it was wet and gross and quickly extinguished any remotely romantic feelings she’d had for him. Then, tonight, Roger.

And now, James. Her hands are in his hair and his are pressed against her waist, under Roger’s sweater but over her dress, and his hair is so _soft_ and he’s doing things with his _tongue_ and the fire she felt earlier in the night is nothing, nothing, compared to this.

Just like that, he steps back. Just like that, the sand in the hourglass runs out.

“Lily?”

She takes a breath, tries not to stare at his lips (swollen) or his hair (thoroughly, thoroughly mussed) as she pulls herself together. “Yes?”

“Are you and Roger —”

Everything comes crumbling down. _Her and Roger._ What was she doing here, with James, when she’d finally gotten Roger? So what if James is a better kisser, so what if the look he’d given her after she’d kissed him for the first time made her stomach tighten? _Roger_ was the one she wanted; had always wanted.

“We’re not together, not —” she swallows that last word, that _yet_ , down.

James steps back, runs a hand through his hair. Crosses his arms. Grimaces, slightly, at the ground. “Okay.”

The room spins in time with her heartbeat. “I don’t know what came over me, I just —”

“It’s my fault,” he says, voice quiet, controlled. “My fault. I knew you always liked him, hell, I even saw you _kissing_ him a few hours ago —”

“It’s not your fault,” Lily says wildly, unsure of what she’s trying to accomplish. “But — we can be friends, right? I’d like to be friends.”

This time, he looks up at her, a more genuine smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, and _he couldn’t have actually liked me,_ Lily thinks, _if he’s taking it this well_. “Yeah. Friends.”

***

Lily wakes the next morning to a splitting headache and a text from Roger. It’s simple, straightforward (the text, not the headache): **that was fun, we should do it again sometime** , to which Lily responds, **definitely**.

Ignoring the guilt settling in her stomach — guilt for what happened with James, even though she hadn’t made any promises to Roger — she pops an Advil and resolves to keep her phone on silent for the rest of the day.

***

The Sideways Diner opens early on Sunday mornings, and it’s there that Lily finds herself a twenty minutes later, talking about the night before with the usual crowd. Alice blows bubblegum bubbles and refuses to eat anything, but still she orders a strawberry milkshake, if only to draw patterns in the whipped cream. Marlene, dressed preppily enough to go golfing, bears almost no resemblance to the tired, sad girl Lily had consoled last night; she smiles brightly, laughs, Sirius’s fever finally, finally broken. Dorcas, half-asleep, leans her head against Lily’s shoulder, legs dangling out into the aisle. Lily herself feels like she’s been ground through a trash compactor; though her headache has subsided somewhat, different moments from the night keep echoing through her head — Roger, smiling at her in the dimly lit kitchen, hand on her back as he’d kissed her; James, looking like he wanted to be anywhere else when he’d interrupted them; Marlene, soft, quiet, wrecked; James, again, and again, and again…

“James and I hooked up last night,” Lily blurts out, unable to stop herself. From the other side of the circular booth, Marlene’s mouth drops open, lip gloss framing a perfect O. Dorcas stirs against Lily’s shoulder, then sits up, forking some of Lily’s pancakes onto her own plate and grumbling.

Alice is the first to break the silence, raising her eyebrows. “Well?”

“What do you mean, ‘well?’” Lily asks, brow furrowing. “James. James Potter. The one I hate? I hooked up with him, and all you have to say is _well?_ ”

“I called it,” Marlene says, a hint of triumph in her voice as she sips her orange juice. “Literally right before it happened. I called it.”

“Was it good?” Alice pushes.

“We just — I mean, we just kissed,” Lily sputters, wondering how she’d managed to lose control of the conversation already.

Dorcas raises an eyebrow, then pokes Lily’s neck. “That hickey says otherwise.”

Marlene’s laughing now, and Alice joins in. “I thought you got with Roger.”

“That was earlier in the night, before…”

“Before you got mysteriously ‘locked’ in the master bedroom with your childhood enemy?” Marlene asks, raising an eyebrow.

“We _were_ locked in!” Lily protests. “It’s an old house, and —”

“Oh, so you just _had_ to make out to pass the time?”

“Well, I got pretty mad at him, and we were fighting, but then we realized we were stuck, and he seemed claustrophobic, so —”

“So you kissed him to make him feel better, obviously,” Alice jumps in, smirking. “It’s what any of us would’ve done. The most clear path forward.”

“I hate all of you,” Lily grumbles. “Besides, we agreed to be friends.”

“And what _kind_ of friend would he be, Lily dear?” Alice asks, batting her eyelashes. “The one that leaves marks on your neck?”

Lily wonders, idly, if her friends will ever let this go.

***

On Friday, after a week of texting back and forth, Roger asks her out. They’ve just finished their last yearbook meeting, and as they walk down the empty hallway towards the parking lot, he says: “You going to the game tonight?”

“There’s a game?” Lily asks, though of course she knows what he’s talking about. She’s a bit too aware of the soccer team’s schedule, thanks to him.

He nods. “We’re playing Rosedale. You should come.”

Lily can’t help herself from blurting: “I should?”

He glances at her, expression hard to read. “Yeah. I mean, if you want to. It would be fun.”

Lily feels the vibrations of incoming text messages in her pocket; thinks of plans. Marlene’s plans, to go to the Dairy Queen and get drunk, maybe, or sleep over at someone’s house. Boring plans. Usual plans. The plans that will result in a few new Snap memories and inside jokes, but nothing more.

The possibility of the game stretches out before her, as long as the corridor they’re walking down. She could go to the game. Cheer Roger on. This _thing_ — whatever they are — could actually go somewhere.

“What’s in it for me?” Lily teases, trying to tell her heart to stop beating so fast. Is he blushing? The fluorescent lights of the hallway, universally unflattering, make it hard to tell.

He forms his words carefully. “I don’t know. School spirit? Yearbook photos? Ice cream?”

Lily laughs. “Ice cream?”

“I mean, if you want, we could get some after.”

Lily’s practically beaming, and it’s so embarrassing, but she can’t stop herself. This is what she’s wanted. This is what she’s always wanted. “Okay. I’ll be there.”

***

The game starts at six, and it’s four thirty now. After Roger leaves for the soccer field, Lily calls Marlene, who screams in her ear and promises to meet her in the bleachers. Dorcas can’t come because she has a violin recital but she tells Lily, almost fondly, not to fuck it up.

“Love you too, Dorcas,” Lily says sweetly into the phone. Dorcas murmurs something similar — albeit in a much less friendly tone — and Lily wonders how she got such amazing friends. She’s about to find an empty classroom to do some work in when someone calls her name.

“Lily! Didn’t think I’d see you here on such a fine Friday evening.” James walks towards her, already in his soccer uniform.

Lily waves her ever-present yearbook camera. “I’m going to the game.”

His hand flutters over his heart, Northwood High’s colors — green and gold — splayed across his chest. “I’m shocked, Evans. Truly. What prompted such a dramatic change in behavior? Possession?” He squints at her. “Whoever’s inhabiting Lily’s body, riddle me this — what was her mother’s maiden name?”

“Lawrence. And I’m, um, meeting with friends. And taking photos.” It’s not a lie, but it’s not the whole truth. Some protective instinct, buried deep inside her, doesn’t want James Potter to be the first person outside of her friend group to find out about Roger — even if James had reverted back to his old self over the course of the week. It’s almost like Halloween night didn’t happen, and Lily is absolutely, one hundred percent sure that he never liked her, that the combination of leftover alcohol and claustrophobia was what drove him to say he wanted to kiss her, not some deep seeded longing. 

He runs a hand through his hair. “Keep the camera on me, ‘kay? I’m the star out there.”

“I’ll try,” Lily says drily. “Aren’t you supposed to be on the field right now?”

James shrugs. “I had to put my contacts in, and the locker room bathrooms were full.” He holds up his glasses, which he’d been carrying in his hand, and Lily’s struck by vivid memory: the way the glasses had dug into her forehead the first time he’d leaned down to kiss her; the way she’d tugged them off his face in a frenzy; the way his face, without them on, looked so vulnerable, even in the dark.

Just as Lily realizes she’s been staring for too long, James snaps his fingers. “Oh, I get it. This the part in the movie where the protagonist takes her glasses off, and the love interest realizes that she’s beautiful. I guess the genders are swapped for this one.”

Lily gapes at him.

“I mean, I thought you would’ve already realized how captivating my eyes are, Lily, but if this is what it takes —”

“Oh, shut up,” she snaps, color rising to her cheeks. She’s thoroughly humiliated, but she’ll be damned if she has to let _him_ see that. “I’m meeting Roger after the game, okay?”

Now it’s his turn to stand stock-still, smug expression frozen on his face. He clears his throat. “Okay. Sorry. I was just joking, I mean —”

“No, I get it —”

“— knew we said we’d be friends, I was just teasing —”

“— it’s okay —”

“— crossed a line, and I’m sorry —”

“— you’re fine, James.”

He scratches the back of his neck. “Okay. Well… I’ll see you on Monday, then.”

“Good luck,” Lily almost whispers.

She watches as he walks away.

***

Northwood crushes Rosedale, 5-0. Roger is a solid wall, not letting a single ball into the net, but, if Lily’s honest with herself, James is the one behind the team’s success. Again and again, he scores; the stands erupting into cheers, his teammates patting him hard on the back. Lily snaps picture after picture, and when it’s over she joins her classmates in flooding the field, a crush of bodies and cheering and exuberance under the rapidly approaching twilight. The team streams out of the locker rooms a few minutes later. Lily searches for Roger amongst the sea of green and gold sweatshirts, and before she can find him, she makes eye contact with James. He’s glowing — cheeks still flushed from the game, hair flattened by the shower, glasses back on. For a moment, Lily swears that the pure energy radiating from him, the unfiltered happiness, makes him seem like a little boy again.

That last thought abandons Lily’s head as soon as she spots Gretchen Prewett running towards him. He lifts her off her feet, spins; not a little boy anymore. Something settles deep in her gut, and she turns away, not sure why seeing James happy causes such discomfort.

“Lily?”

She blinks; while she’s been off in her own head, Roger’s walked over, and now he stands in front of her, grinning. “Great job out there,” she says, not quite knowing what to do with herself.

Is he blushing? He’s definitely blushing.. “Thanks. I, um — wanna get ice cream?”

“Definitely,” Lily says, confidence rising. _He’s nervous, too_.

“Cool. I just have to say goodbye to everyone, and then we can go.” He holds a hand out expectantly. She takes it, realizing too late that this means she’ll have to see James one more time.

They weave through the crowd, shouted congratulations and praise following them as they move closer to where the majority of the team stands. Lily knows that people can see her and Roger’s intertwined hands, and the thought sends a thrill through her.  
“Davies,” Preston Fawley, right midfielder, shouts. “We’re going to James’s — wanna join?”

Lily looks past Preston and sees James, arm slung around Gretchen’s waist, talking to Remus and Peter.  
“What do you think, Lily?” Roger asks, looking at her with an unreadable expression on his face.

“I’m not really in the mood right now, can we stick to ice cream?”

“C’mon, Evans, lighten up a little,” Preston says, a glint of _something_ in his eye. Whatever it is, it makes Lily want to stay ten feet away from him for the rest of her life.

Roger shifts his weight, hand growing damp in hers. “It’s her call.”

“Girls,” Preston chuckles, shaking his head. Roger returns the gesture uneasily and tugs on Lily’s hand.

“We’re going. See you around, Preston.”

“See you soon,” the other boy responds, and then they’re walking across the field, towards the parking lot.

“Preston’s a dick,” Roger says.

“You could’ve at least stood up for me,” Lily responds, “I mean seriously, what was that? ‘Girls?’ Like I’m not right in front of him?”

“With Preston, it’s better to just back away slowly,” Roger replies, a hint of humor in his voice. “Everyone knows he’s like that.”

“And no one says anything?”

“Trust me, it’s best to just leave him alone.”

“And have him spew condescending, borderline sexist shit like that — ”

They’ve reached the parking lot; Roger stops abruptly in front of a white Toyota. “This is mine. I was thinking we could go to the Baskin Robbins?”

Lily takes a deep breath — perhaps the subject change is for the best, anyway. She needs to remind herself why she’s here. Not to change the soccer team’s team culture, but to go on a date with Roger Davies. Smart, handsome, and her crush since freshman year. She pastes a smile back onto her face with minimal effort. “That sounds great.”

He grins back, and they’re off.

***

Lily orders mint chip; Roger takes strawberry. He pays — Lily protests only a little bit — and they sit at an empty picnic table. After a few awkward moments, they find a conversational rhythm. Between licks of ice cream, Roger tells her that his parents are divorced; that he wants to be recruited but is having a hard time getting scouts interested; and, now, that he really, really hates James.

As Roger launches into the first of many anti-James anecdotes, Lily wonders if this is what she sounded like whenever she used to rant about the boy. Surely she wasn’t so bitter, was she?

“… kicked the ball right from under my feet, then laughed about it…”

“Yikes,” Lily responds, wondering when this line of conversation will end. She’s finished her ice cream, and is getting cold; mid November means relatively nice days and lukewarm nights. She shivers, then imagines sending an update to Marlene, Alice, and Dorcas: _never imagined i’d spend my first date with roger gossiping about james, but here we are :/_. Marlene, Lily thinks, would be sympathetic but suggest changing the subject. Alice would tell Lily to just date James instead — _as if that would ever happen_ , Lily thinks. Dorcas, no doubt, would advise faking an emergency and leaving. Lily does none of those things: instead, she sits, letting both Roger’s words and the cool fall breeze wash over her. She’s not excited, but she’s not bored, either; she’s comfortable, almost sleepy, sitting here. In fact, she could just doze off —

The sound of Roger’s phone ringing interrupts his monologue. He picks it up, and his eyes widen; after a few hushed words, he hangs up, then looks up at Lily apologetically. “I need to go to James’s house. We’re doing team bonding or some shit.”

What?”

“Preston says I should come, and it’s important that I have a good relationship with everyone, even James, in case a scout asks them about me, and —”

“You can go, it’s fine,” Lily says, and she finds that it is, truly, fine. She’s had a nice night; not a great one, but maybe first dates aren’t all they’re cracked up to be ( _or maybe Roger isn’t all he’s cracked up to be_ , she thinks, before dismissing the thought guiltily). Roger takes her hand as they walk back towards the parking lot.

“I’ll drive you home before I head over.”

“It’s fine,” Lily responds, knowing that Marlene would be happy to pick her up, if only to get the first scoop on what happened. “You should go.”

He stands, looking vaguely pained as he considers her words. “Are you sure?”

“Positive,” Lily replies.

“Okay.”

For a second, they just stare at each other. “I had a lot of fun,” Lily offers.

Roger’s leaning in, so slowly that she can’t be sure that it’s actually happening. “Me too. We should do it again sometime.”

“Definitely.”

He kisses her softly, and then his phone is ringing again. “Shit.”

Lily blinks, caught in an odd feeling of unreality. “Okay. Go. I’ll see you later.”

“Text me when you get home.”

“Right. Bye.”

He gets in his car and drives off, leaving Lily standing in the half-empty parking lot.

***

“Lily, can I ask you an honest question?”

Lily glances over at Marlene, who perches on the opposite end of the couch, mug of hot chocolate cradled in her hands. They’re watching _Love, Rosie_ , Marlene’s favorite movie; two hours have passed since Lily’s date with Roger. “Sure, go ahead.”

Marlene inhales, as if about to jump off of some unseen cliff. “Do you even like Roger?”

For a second, Lily just stares at her friend, then: “What do you mean?”

Another careful breath. “Well, from what you told me about tonight, it didn’t really seem like you enjoyed hanging out with him. I could be wrong, of course. Please tell me if I’m wrong.”

“I don’t know,” Lily responds, testing the words out on her tongue. _I don’t know if I like Roger_. She can’t quite bring herself to say the words, to admit that defeat; doing so would abolish the one certainty that had lasted from freshman year to now. _I don’t know Roger_ , she realizes. _Roger is not who I thought he would be_. “I liked sitting there. Listening to him talk. His life is interesting.”

“You find everyone’s life interesting.”

“I liked kissing him.”

“You’ll kiss a lot of people.”

“Why do you care so much, anyway?” Lily asks, suddenly defensive, defensive becauseMarlene’s _right_ ; because Marlene knows her as well as Sev did; because life would be so, so much easier if she could bring herself to like the real Roger as much as she likes the Roger in her head.

“I don’t want you getting into your first relationship with the wrong person.”

“How do you know that he’s the wrong person?”

Marlene leans back, tilts her head back towards the screen. “I don’t. But I think that you do.”

Lily’s phone buzzes: a Snap from Roger, drunk already, Preston in the background. She sighs, turns back towards the TV. “Yeah, I think you’re right.” 


	5. of explanations and apologies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, long time no see! here's the next chapter, thanks so much for sticking with me!!

Petunia comes back for Thanksgiving with a declared major and a boyfriend. The major — nursing — is to be expected; the boyfriend, however, is not. His name is Vernon. He’s stocky and short and smells like cigarettes. They sit in the living room — Petunia and Vernon, Mom and Dad, Lily — in near silence.

Finally, Lily speaks. “How’s school?”

Petunia flicks an invisible piece of lint off her pencil skirt. “Fine.”

“What are you majoring in, Vernon?” Lily’s mom asks.

His lips spread across his face and it takes Lily a moment to realize that this is what his smile looks like, reptilian as it may appear. “Finance.”

“Vernon’s very good at it. He’s a senior, you know.”

“A senior?” Lily blurts out before she can stop herself. “In college?”

Vernon shoots Petunia a look, like _who the hell is this girl_ , and Petunia responds with a grimace before turning back to her sister. “In college, Lily.” She spits Lily’s name like it’s poison. 

“It’s just —”

Lily’s mom glares at her.

A knock sounds at the front door, and Lily springs up to get it, surprised to find James standing on the doorstep. It’s been drizzling out, and he doesn’t have a coat, and for a second Lily feels like she _must_ get him warm, give him a blanket at least, but then he smiles and wipes droplets off his glasses and offers the bouquet of flowers he’d been holding.

“From my mother to yours.”

“Huh?”

“I think they’re on the PTA together, hit it off. She wanted me to bring flowers to the Evans household.” He looks over her shoulder, into the house. “Is this a bad time?”

From the living room, Lily’s mom calls, “Who’s there, Lily?”

Lily sends a panicked look in James’s direction. “Um. James — James Potter?”

“Don’t leave him out in the rain,” her mother calls, scolding, almost, and Lily can imagine, with frightening clarity, the look Petunia’s giving Vernon right now — the _Lily’s always been different, socially awkward, just my silly sister, glad you found me and not her_ …

“You okay?” James asks, brow furrowing as his eyes search her face. “I can come back.”

“No, sorry, just spaced out for a second. Come in,” Lily responds, shaking herself slightly and taking the bouquet. “They’re pretty.”

“My mom wanted to send, um, lilies and petunias, but I talked her out of it,” he admits, hands in pockets as he follows her through the foyer and into the kitchen, where she starts looking for a vase.

“Thank god.”

“Thank James,” he teases, hopping up on the kitchen counter, and this is something he’s always been infuriatingly good at, James: acting like he’s at home wherever he is. Tricking her into feeling comfortable, even when she’s not.

For a second — brief second — Lily imagines what it would be like to stand between his knees and kiss him. She dismisses the thought. Finds the vase. Fills it with water from the kitchen sink and cuts the flowers’ too-long stems and arranges them in a pleasing way. James watches and doesn’t speak.

She’s run out of tasks, now, so she turns to face him. “That calc test is going to give me a migraine.”

He smiles, something weak in it. It occurs to Lily, horrified, that he may not _want_ to be here, with her; that he may have come in because her mother insisted that he do so, that he’s been waiting to leave this entire time. After all, why _would_ he want to spend time with her? They’d been friendly at school, sure, but that doesn’t mean he wants to see her outside of it. She opens her mouth, closes it: how does one say “you can leave, if you want” without sounding like a complete jerk? Besides, she wants him to stay. She’s not sure of many things, but that she’s sure of. She would exchange James’s palpable silence with Petunia’s any day.

“Is your sister here?” he asks, tracing a finger along the faux-marble lines of the countertop. She tries her best not to keep staring at his hands. Why is she staring at his hands? 

“Yeah, she’s home for Thanksgiving. With her boyfriend.” Lily can’t hide the displeasure that coats those last few words.

James raises an eyebrow. “Would you rather she stayed single?”

She shrugs, leans against the opposite counter. The Evans’ kitchen isn’t huge — more like an afterthought, removed from the rest of the first floor — and only a few feet separate them. “He’s just… three years older than her. And so _boring_.”

He laughs at that. “Maybe he’s not boring to her.”

Lily leans forward conspiratorially. “Want to know a secret?”

“What?” he whispers, head tipping towards hers.

“I think she _likes_ that he’s boring.”

James makes a face. “What’s the fun in that?”

“I know, right?”

“Lily?” A new voice.

Lily turns so fast that she can feel her neck crack, just a little bit. Her mother now stands in the doorway, apron over her nice dress, eyeing the flowers and the boy who brought them. “Hello, James.”

“Hello, Ms. Evans,” James says, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. That confidence, that sense of self, falters under Laurel Evans’ gaze — she’s been known to have that effect.

That is, at least until she tilts her head, smiles. “How’s your mother?”

He grins back. “Great, yeah. Having a bit of a gardening moment.”

“Looks like it. The flowers are wonderful.”

“I’m glad you like them.”

“Stay for dinner?”

Lily looks at her mother in shock, but the woman doesn’t even cast a glance in her direction. James does, though, and for a second Lily swears she can read his mind. It goes like this: he raises an eyebrow, and she responds with a shrug, and he thinks for a moment (fingers still tracing those marble-countertop lines, Lily can’t stop watching them move) and then nods, and says, “If you’d have me, that would be great.”

“You’d better get out of the kitchen, then. You can visit with Petunia and Vernon?” Here, Laurel’s eyes shift to her daughter. “Or Lily can show you the house?”

Lily’s never been like her mother, not really. Appearance-wise, Lily’s hair is too red and her eyes are too green and her hips are too wide. Personality-wise, her voice is too soft, her confidence too fallible, her way of being too unobtrusive. Laurel and Petunia: two peas of the same pod, but here, now, when Laurel glances at Lily, gives her an out, another option, _anything_ better than spending more time with her sister — now, Lily realizes that her mother may understand her better than she thought.

“I’d love to see the house, Lily,” James says, mischief in his eye, knowing what he knows, now, about her annoyance with Petunia.

“Wonderful,” Laurel says. Wind blows against the windows as she and Lily swap places, as James hops off the counter, as he follows Lily out.

***

The Evans residence is not a mansion, not in any sense of the word. Lily avoids the living room, where Petunia, Vernon, and Mark Evans still sit, making stilted conversation, but she shows James the home office, the first-floor powder room, the dining room where they’ll eat later. “Upstairs are just bedrooms,” she says, standing by the staircase, unsure what to do with herself.

“I bet you have a color-coordinated bookshelf,” James says, like he can tell by the freckles on her face or the way she walks or anything about her, really.

“Oh?” she replies, cocking an eyebrow. Standing on the first step of the staircase, they’re the same height.

“Yeah.”

“One way to find out.” And then they’re walking up the staircase, and into Lily’s room, and she has to blink. Has to reset. Because _this_ — James Potter in her room — was never supposed to happen.

“No color coordination,” he tsks at her bookshelf, then sits on her desk chair. She takes the bed — it’s a twin, not big enough for the both of them. All is quiet as she watches him examine her desktop. She feels laid bare, vulnerable, as he looks at the pictures she’s chosen to frame.

“Halloween, freshman year,” he says, pointing at a photo of Lily and Marlene, dressed as emoji salsa dancers.

A dim memory surfaces. James, in a broad-rimmed hat and heeled boots. “You were a cowboy, right?”

“Yeah. Peter was my horse.”

She sees it, now: James, shorter and rail-thin, all sharp angles, drinking in Sirius’s kitchen. Seeing her. _Shot, Evans?_ Her, wrinkling her nose, turning away. Her first real party, completely sober. “I bet he loved that.” 

His expression darkens for a second, then he nods. Gives her an easy smile. Her skin’s prickling because the last time they were together for this long, they ended up kissing. And she’s not sure that’s an experience she wants to repeat. Well, _part_ of her’s not sure that’s an experience she wants to repeat.

He turns back towards her desk, focuses on an old photo of her and Sev; one she’s debated cutting up and throwing away a million times. “I forgot you were friends with Snivellus,” he says, aiming for a light tone and missing the mark completely. 

“It’s Sev.”

He turns back towards her. “Oh?”

“It’s Severus. Sev. Not Snivellus.” She needs to regain control of this situation, needs to put some barrier up; needs to remind herself that the boy in her bedroom, the one looking through her stuff, is still James Potter. Still too sharp to touch.

“He speaks quite nasally, though,” James says, smirking slightly.

“I think it’s quite a mean nickname to give someone,” Lily says, tone stiff. She sits up straighter, meets his eyes.

He looks away first, something like red coloring his cheeks. “I guess it is. Old habits die hard.”

It’s a concession — yes, a small one, but a concession nonetheless. She decides to match it with one of her own. “I keep thinking about Halloween.”

His gaze snaps back to hers, and it’s her turn to blush. “Not the — not _that_ part. Before. When you asked me why I’m so, well, confusing.”

She can’t do this. Can’t unspool her thoughts, untangle them, arrange them neatly; can’t do it while looking at him, can’t do it while in her childhood bedroom, can’t unpack the mania and leave it for him to interpret, like some lost artifact.

But then she marvels at the fact that he’s _here_ , that he’s listening, waiting patiently. And she decides that she can at least try.

“For the most of my life, I haven’t been on your side, James,” she finally starts, staring at her lap. “Sev was my only friend. I felt like he was the only one who _got_ me, who truly saw me. Petunia didn’t; Mom and Dad tried but they were too busy. He was my only ally.”

At this, she dares to look up. He’s frozen, devoid of all color: a painting. An anomaly against these pink-painted walls.

“And — not to go into specifics — but he had a rough childhood. Rough home life. And you — you’ve always been so _perfect_ , James. Smart. Charismatic. Um, handsome. You coasted through life, and you made his a living hell.”

“I didn’t coast through life, Lily,” James mutters, but it’s a moot point. She knows it, he knows it.

“It’s not your fault — the coasting, that is. Everyone knows you’re destined for — well, whatever you want, really,” she says, making some vague gesture towards the window, towards the world. “But it was a harsh contrast to Sev. You were perfect, and you were still bullying him.” A whisper, but he can hear it: “The perfection hurt the most, I think.”

He shifts in his seat, uncomfortable. “And then that night. Halloween. You asked why I was mad at you, and you didn’t remember. You didn’t remember all those days on the playground. You could just _forget_. It made me, well, mad.”

He clears his throat, but she’s not finished. “I know you’re not like that anymore. I overheard you in the stairwell, back in September, and it was nice of you to take the blame for the camera. And I know that Sev — well, he’s — he’s not really someone worth defending. But that’s where it gets hard. We were friends for a long time, and I’m trying — I’m trying _so_ _much_ to forget, to forget about our childhood and our moments together and the fact that, for so long, we were each other’s person. But it’s difficult, and your reaction was just salt in the wound.”'

The thought strikes Lily, belatedly, that she’s never told someone this much about her relationship with Sev. She wonders if confiding in James was a mistake, but dismisses the thought. She _trusts_ him now, she realizes. She has no real reason to, not really; a shared math class, one Halloween night — these connections don’t inspire automatic faith. Yet still, his casual friendship over the past month, the way he blends into her home life: these small interactions make her confident that he'll guard her secrets.

“Lily, I’m so —” he sounds stiff. Like he’s exercising a muscle long neglected. She hears his inhale, hears him start again. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I forgot on Halloween. I separate — I didn’t make the connection between you and Severus, Lily, because I’ve tried so hard to forget it. Reminding myself that Severus Snape knows you better than I ever will — it’s just too painful.” Another breath. “You’ve always been the one I wanted to impress. I was so jealous of Severus, Lily. When we were younger, I couldn’t believe that you chose hang out with him over me, but of course you did. You’re so _good_ , Lily. We were assholes, we hurt people. I regret it all, now.”

The air stills. He looks up, then out the window. His glasses have fallen down his nose, and Lily feels the oddest urge to slide them back into place. “It’s okay,” she finds herself saying, because it really is. A textbook apology. She accepts it wholeheartedly. “I just wanted to explain.”

He nods, gaze slotting back to hers, something wonderfully familiar about it. “Your explanations are more emotionally taxing than the average girl’s, Lily Evans.”

She feels her mouth giving way to a smile. “Can’t ever do anything halfway.”

He chuckles quietly, face falling into unreadable territory yet again. “Right.”

 _Shit._ “I would — I would like to be friends, though,” she offers tentatively. “For real this time.”

For a second she gets deja vu — that same proposal of friendship, his same smile, reappearing now, a month ago on Halloween. “That’s a relief.”

“And James?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t — I need you to know — I don’t see you as that elementary school kid anymore, okay?”

His grin stretches even wider, but before he can respond, Laurel Evans knocks on the door, telling them that dinner’s ready.

Lily can’t help noticing that, as they leave her bedroom, James is standing up straighter than he did before. Can’t help noticing that she is, too. 

**Author's Note:**

> more parts to come! let me know if you enjoyed and also i have a [tumblr](https://the-demelza-robins.tumblr.com/) lol


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